It is a real success for business owners when they start getting requests from customers. As market researchers state, customers are the most influential factors for the success of any business. If you are a business owner, you must have realized the customers are the ones that drive the revenues. So it becomes extremely important for businesses to keep their customers satisfied. Solely for this purpose companies emphasize efficient customer service that solves all the queries and problems along with keeping all the requests. Because the higher the customer is the higher the success rate will be for any business.
To make customer service more efficient, companies focused on digitalization and adopted technological advancements in this sector along with other operations. With the increase in business, it becomes impossible to manage the fluency of customer service. It becomes a headache for the business owner as they have to consider several sides such as how to meet the demand and ensure that customer requests are being answered throughout. When the time comes when the in-house team cannot keep up with the numerous calls as a business owner you can either increase the size of customer phone support or utilize the profits of an online chat service.
What is phone support?
It is the primary way of customer service where the customer has real-life conversations with customer service agents over the phone. The agents assist the customers on any issue or request over the phone by having a one-to-one conversation. Around 62% of customers said they prefer phone support over live chat support. But before making any decision, see the advantages and disadvantages of phone support.
● Advantages
1) It allows the agents to form a personal connection by studying the tone and mood of the customer.
2) It provides a personalized experience.
3) It has a callback system which reduces the customers’ waiting time.
4) Can question the customer regarding difficult issues which saves time.
● Disadvantages
1) Customers who have urgency may have to wait in line to get a hold of the agent.
2) Costly to maintain a huge number of agents.
3) It is also difficult to record or document every conversation with the customers.
What is online live chat?
It is another way for customers to have real-time conversations with customer support agents. However, these conversations take place over texts where the customers get instant help through instant messaging platforms. Surely you have visited websites where on the home page a little box pops up. This is how companies use live chat online for customer support. There are two types of live chat that companies use for their customer support. These are either a bot that initiates the conversations and then if not solved instantly, it takes you to a live agent. Now, just like other things, live chat support also has advantages and disadvantages.
● Advantages
1) It is highly accessible to customers. They will find it on the company's website itself and would not need to go to another complicated page.
2) It answers timely; using a bot to answer questions depends on the software and tackles literal seconds to respond.
3) As it is life, you can handle multiple chats at the same time.
4) Chatbots can solve uncomplicated issues on their own.
5) It can answer simple questions without any supervision.
● Disadvantages
1) It is not designed to solve complex and difficult problems.
2) Chatbots have scripted responses which becomes frustrating for the customers.
3) Customers can not share all information over the chat.
4) There is no human contact in the response.
What will be the best for you?
Before deciding on anything you must remember that customer service and support are the backbones of any business and its success. They drive the revenue and profit of your business; thus, you must be careful before weighing the options. Both types have their advantages and disadvantages. It will be to be a wise decision to look at the brighter side of both options.
